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| From https://childrenoftheburningfist.files. wordpress.com/2011/11/index1.jpg |
Director: Shinya Sadamitsu
Screenplay: Hideki Sonoda
Based on the manga by Kaimu
Tachibana
Voice Cast: Daiki Nakamura as Shi
Nakamura; Hekiru Shiina as Princess Hekiru Shiina; Hiroko Kasahara as Hitomi
Kasahara; Kenichi Ono as Shotaro Ono/Shinesman Sepia; Kōichi Yamadera as Shogo
Yamadera/Shinesman Grey; Noriko Hidaka as Riko Hidaka/Shinesman Salmon Pink; Nozomu
Sasaki as Sugura Sasaki; Rica Matsumoto as Youta Matsumoto; Sho Hayami as
Ryoichi Hayami/Shinesman Moss Green; Toshihiko Seki as Shujin Seki; Yasunori
Matsumoto as Kosuke Matsumoto/Shinesman Red; Yoshiko Sakakibara as Kyoko
Sakakibara
Viewed in English Dub
Synopsis: Kosuke Matsumoto, when he joins the Right Trading company
as a paid employee, is surprised to learn that, alongside his normal salaryman
responsibilities, he's also hired by the head of human resources Kyoko
Sakakibara for the Shinesman project, as a super sentai team with four
co-workers who don costumes and fight evil.
Director Shinya Sadamitsu has had some bad luck - Dragon Half (1993), a beloved piss take on high fantasy, only got
two half hour episodes before it was canned, and Shinesman whilst not cancelled also only got two half hour
episodes. Sadly, whilst it has its moments, Shinesman (about a corporate superhero team) suffers more from its
brisk length, never taking full advantage of its premise as I'd wish. It starts
off well, with the team fighting a horrible monster that was
stealing/sabotaging corporate information, but sadly, the show drifts off into
a simplistic tale against two aliens, posing as humans, trying to take over the
world that isn't taken advantage of for its slight length.
A shame as, in the twilight years
of OVAs in the late nineties, brightly coloured and so very different to modern
anime in style, there's a lot here of promise and that shines through occasionally.
The heroes, baring lead hero Kosuke Matsumoto in red, are fellow office staff
in ill-advised colour choices even their leader, head of human resources Kyoko
Sakakibara, hates, the co-workers fitting stereotypes - Riko Hidaka (Salmon
Pink) is the only female member, an office girl stuck constantly getting drinks
and cigarettes at the vending machine for staff when she's a lot more tougher
than she looks, or Shogo Yamadera (Grey) whose passion and romantic life is entirely
for his car, a Montero, not to mention the others have for costuming sepia and
Moss Green. There's even a fake in-anime ad for Shinesman themed bath merchandise,
where the two episodes should've gone in less than sixty minutes in terms of
playing up to this absurd premise, alongside the fact that their business
themed weapons (like the business card cutter) are bemoaned as usually being
useless.
It's all reminiscent of Samurai Flamenco (2013-14) in all
honesty, where this type of hero was taken on a much more serious and expansive
version with the humorous contrast between the heroics and banal life even more
creative and fleshed out. The length didn't stop Dragon Half cramming enough jokes (and a Beethoven piece with new
lyrics about lunch over the end credits) to thus become an iconic work even in
the 2010s, but Shinesman decided to
try to have a story when there wasn't enough time to without feeling paltry. A shame
as, as part of the tone, the villains are also set up with ripe comic potential
- posing as business men for another corporation, an alien overload and his
assistant are trying to take over through corporate tactics. Unfortunately, in
the biggest plot piece, the overlord's sister has appeared and presumes the
Earth is like the cartoon recordings sent back, emphasising that whilst its
broad and wooden at times, the English dub was regarded well for good reason
for how it played up Shinesman's moments of comic goodness, particularly with
playing up how these villains, stuck as unthreatening figures in truth, have to
get around their own banal problems.
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| From https://i.ytimg.com/vi/dSZDimSu6IQ/hqdefault.jpg |
It's a shame that, to pinpoint where the two episodes falter, the second episode tries to focus on plot knowing all too well there's not enough time to care for it in investment. Episode 2, where the villains try to take over a fairground exhibition, goes for a conventional story with jokes, weaving plot threads left unattended to like the minion's sister being secretly part of the hero's side, an alien herself trying to snap him out of being brainwashed, or the sister being romantically connected to the hero. Dragon Half managed to survive, and even get a Discotek re-release in the 2010s, because in spite of its stunted length its legacy was managing to pull off so much with what was there to stand out. Shinesman in hindsight should've followed this same template, and it's a wise reference to make as, not only are they from the same director, but Dragon Half's reputation is enough that the manga from 1988 was finally being released in the West from 2017.
Shinesman instead belongs to that period especially in the nineties
of OVAs which were made as manga tie-ins, with the problem that without the
source material being released in the West, they were merely references, like apocrypha
for a sacred anime text. A shame as, considering Samurai Flamenco promised and executed it perfectly, this idea of
combining superheroes ordinary lives had legs; hell, even Excel Saga's 1999 TV anime has a sub plot about a corporate
superhero team too, the idea of marketable heroes a joke that is practically
money on the table for anyone to do a story upon. What little of Shinesman got to this, like the
Shinesman soap and towel set, showed what we should've gotten.
Even more interesting, and barely
covered, is knowing that this was a shoujo manga, meaning that its target
audience was initially for women, an interesting detail as, whilst the men in
the hero and villain sides are all very handsome, even the older father with a
daughter who is Shinesman Sepia, there's a sense here of demonstrating just how
diverse a genre tag like "shoujo" actually is as would be its mirror
Seinen, targeted to young men. It offers a nice bow to know that a great
premise like this has no defined bias for its target audience.
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| From http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-b0pqnF-T0iY/UxaMDqynPLI/ AAAAAAAADoc/JGhSwPdlAJw/s1600/Shinesman+1.jpg |
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